


as you are now, ever again

by MagicalSpaceDragon



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Grief/Mourning, Post-Transformers: Lost Light 25, Temporary Character Death, reconnecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27593932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalSpaceDragon/pseuds/MagicalSpaceDragon
Summary: They part ways, and Drift never sees him again. It happens a few centuries later, and he hears about it incidentally. Not evenfromsomeone, just a news broadcast on a quiet cycle. A bad road, high speeds, engex, a wreck. That's all it takes, and suddenly Rodimus is gone.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock & Rodimus | Rodimus Prime, Drift | Deadlock/Ratchet (minor)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 39





	as you are now, ever again

**Author's Note:**

> "space can you write something besides angsty rodimus-centric post-LL25 fic" absolutely not

They part ways, and Drift never sees him again. It happens a few centuries later, and he hears about it incidentally. Not even _from_ someone, just a news broadcast on a quiet cycle. A bad road, high speeds, engex, a wreck. That's all it takes, and suddenly Rodimus is gone.

"Dammit, kid," Ratty says quietly.

"He'd hate it," Drift agrees, just before it starts to sink in.

* * *

Try again.

* * *

They stay in each other's orbits as long as they can, but life happens and doesn't stop, and the visits start to peter off.

"Got a job on the Exitus," Rodimus says on one of them, when they're already few and far between. "I'm looking forward to it. I feel like I'm going crazy, being trapped down here."

Years pass, slowly or what feels like five or ten at a time. Rodimus seems like he's been drinking more often than not when he calls, but at some point it stops being Drift's problem. He lets it pass without comment, even at Ratchet's funeral, because he just doesn't have it left in him to fight about it.

Rodimus gets himself killed doing something stupid. Drift tells himself it was a foregone conclusion.

* * *

Try again.

* * *

"You've been drinking," Drift says.

Rodimus denies it, same as he always does, but the flash of guilt and something else is there.

"Keep in touch," Rodimus says. It's just words, just something you say because it's what you say, and they both know it.

Drift doesn't call. Neither does Rodimus.

Decades later, Thunderclash comes by in person because Drift doesn't want to bear it alone again. He brings Rodimus' effects, barely enough to fill a few boxes compared to all the evidence of a life well-lived that Ratchet left behind, and they slowly sort through them together.

"I don't believe he ever considered me a friend," Thunderclash says quietly. "And there was always a… disconnect, I suppose, between him and the rest of the crew. I should have done more for him."

The box in Drift's lap contains everything he would need to set up a humble Spectralist altar, just the right size to tuck into the corner of a standard hab for personal use. Thunderclash packed it up himself, and Drift wonders whether Rodimus would have scoffed at that, at the crisp folds of fabric bundled around each old, chipped crystal as though such damaged things were still worth treating with care.

"I should have done more too," Drift admits.

* * *

Try again.

* * *

"Keep in touch."

"If I can _find_ you," Drift says. He's hurt, he's afraid, he's _grieving._ He's barely holding himself together as it is. The guilt in Rodimus' aura on top of it all is suffocating, and it's no relief when he pulls away.

Drift calls, eventually. Rodimus is startled and hesitant and painfully awkward, but they talk. They make shallow conversation. Rodimus cuts himself off when he starts to get too familiar, and Drift does the same, and when they hang up he manages to keep his composure, more or less, in spite of it all. Rodimus initiates their calls after that. They hurt less each time.

Drift heals, eventually. They never go back to what they used to be, but it's enough for them to check in with each other every few years. It's enough.

It's enough.

Between the two of them, Rodimus dies first. Drift is starting to wonder if it's going to be like that every time.

* * *

Try again.

* * *

He wakes up tangled in someone's arms, and he throws himself out of berth and scrambles halfway across the floor before he registers Ratchet's kind, tired voice.

"It's just me," he murmurs. "War's over, you're home, you're safe."

It's been a long time since Drift's had a nightmare that bad, and he's almost shamefaced as he climbs back into berth, back into Ratchet's arms.

"You died," Drift says, not sure how to explain the rest of it.

"I'm right here," Ratty soothes. "I'm not going anywhere."

And Drift remembers that assurance from the nightmare, over and over, and how one day it became only _I'm right here,_ and then one day it wasn't even that anymore.

"Ratchet," he says, feeling cold. "What are the symptoms of spark failure?"

Drift has never researched spark failure. When Ratchet slowly lists off the symptoms, Drift finds himself able to recite them by heart.

"When was the last time you had someone who wasn't _you_ do a check-up on your spark?" Drift hears himself ask. He's shaking.

The look on Ratchet's face—

—it's the look of someone who's known for years.

 _"Drift,"_ Ratchet says, his voice broken, and Drift feels himself breaking too. What use is a vision of a horrible future, if it comes too late to change anything?

Later, when he can't bear to look his dying conjunx in the eye any longer, he calls Rodimus even though they haven't spoken in centuries and, sobbing, tells him everything.

* * *

Try again.

* * *

Prowl dismantles the Lost Light. Drift can't tear his eyes away from Rodimus.

Later, when they're alone, in some gray-brown side room with a conference table neither of them are sitting at and no windows for witnesses to peer through, he finally dares to ask. "This keeps happening, doesn't it?"

Rodimus looks at him like he's been struck, then smiles like he can't remember how to lie. "What?"

Drift turns aside just enough that this isn't a confrontation, fingers worrying at the subtle imperfections in the hilt of his sword. "I remember my conversation with Ratty this morning." It's strange. It feels like a distant nightmare by now, and yet…

And yet, there's dawning understanding, dawning _horror,_ on Rodimus' face. "You _remember?"_

"You keep dying," Drift says, because somehow _that's_ what hasn't faded. Maybe he has unfinished business. Maybe they both do. "I thought they were dreams, or visions, but they're not, are they?"

Rodimus stares at him, and stares, and starts laughing. It's not a happy sound. "Okay," he chokes out. He trembles for half a breath and Drift darts forward to catch him before he can collapse. "Okay. Sure. What the hell."

There are too many questions that need answers. Drift pushes them all aside and says, lifetimes too late, "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Rodimus laughs weakly into the crook of his neck and wraps his arms around him. "Good to have you back, buddy."

**Author's Note:**

> man it'd be so cool if i knew what the fuck was going on here but im just the writer, you know how it is
> 
> anyway tell me your theories


End file.
